


Sharpe's Equal

by Sharpiefan



Category: Sharpe - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 18:11:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1097008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sharpiefan/pseuds/Sharpiefan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the prompts Friend and Scars</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sharpe's Equal

  
**Spoiler:** _Sharpe's Tiger_  
 **100 Situations Prompt:** Friend  
[](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=aos_challenge)[ **aos_challenge**](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=aos_challenge) **prompt:** Scars  
 **Rating:** 15  
 **Pairing/Characters:** Sharpe/Lawford

Sharpe watched Lawford from his position by the window. Other people who knew Lawford from India would have thought that there was not much of the callow Lieutenant left in the South Essex’s Colonel. Sharpe knew better however. India had changed him from a Private into an officer, and given him more than his fair share of scars along the way, mostly on his back.

But Lawford’s skin was just as clear and unmarked as it ever had been. Oh, there were the usual small scars anyone would get from living thirty-three years: a scrape on the arm from a bramble bush as a young child, one on the back of the hand from handling an angry cat. But there were none that even came close to rivalling Sharpe’s collection. He’d been flogged as a Private, gained several over the years from sword-wielding murderous bastards (including one spectacular one on his face that had come within inches of taking his eye out), shot, stabbed and generally mauled about.

He really couldn’t see what attraction he held for Lawford any more. Maybe it was simply the fact that it was more comfortable for Lawford to be with him than to try to find someone else who was more his level. Comfortable… He grinned at the thought.

“What are you smiling at, Richard?” Lawford asked.

“Nothing. I just like watching you,” Sharpe replied.

Lawford’s eyes widened, and he blushed. It was at times like this that Sharpe could see in the Colonel that same innocence he’d had as the Lieutenant in India.

Back then, Lawford had tried so hard to understand Sharpe, to make him forget the yawning gulf of rank that lay between them, even during their mission in Seringapatam, when he’d done his best to live the life of a Private that Sharpe lived every day.

But it was only here, in a rented room in Spain, that they could finally meet as equals. And even then, they weren’t truly equal. Sharpe never fit in the way Lawford did, never felt at ease in the Officers’ Mess. But that didn’t matter here.

Sharpe crossed to the bed in two strides, dropping down to lay beside Lawford. He’d never understood Lawford’s fascination back then. To be honest, he still didn’t understand it, but he’d come to accept it.

He lay on his front, arms folded under his head and remembered laying the same way in another bed twelve years before. The fingers that had smoothed ointment into his flogged back now traced the same scars, gently, as if trying to smooth them away. He wriggled a little and then stilled, letting the fingers trace each scar.

“I’m sorry, Dick,” Lawford said. “They wouldn’t let me get to the court-martial.”

Sharpe hid a grin in the crook of his elbow. “I’ve lost count of how many times you’ve said that, Bill,” he answered, raising his head and turning to look at his companion. “But it wouldn’t have done any good, and I’d probably have received the whole lot. If you hadn’t persuaded the General you wanted to take me.”

He still didn’t know why Lawford had wanted him, and at the time he’d been in too much pain to care. But every time they were together, Lawford offered him that same gift: someone wanted him, and nobody else would do. And part of that was the use, between themselves, of the old names they’d had for each other on that mission.

Maybe it made Lawford feel needed, too. Yes, outside this room, when others could overhear them, Lawford called him “Captain Sharpe” or “Captain” or just “Sharpe” or even, on occasion “Richard”, each different name acknowledging some different way that Lawford needed him. But it was only here that Lawford admitted that older need, that of a friend, and attempted to enter Sharpe’s world of soldiering, leaving behind the fancy uniform, the crystal and the soldier-servant who was there at his beck and call.

Maybe it was a game that Lawford played, a ‘let’s pretend’, where they were still private soldiers together – although they’d never been that, really, had only been on a mission where the Private Lawford had been a cover. Maybe Lawford thought that Sharpe couldn’t ever fit into his own world, and so he tried to enter Sharpe’s. If it was a game, Sharpe was happy with it. Here, he had no responsibilities to anyone else apart from his mate (and he often wondered what had happened to his real friend from the ranks, Tom Garrard).

Lawford’s hand was still exploring the map of scars that criss-crossed Sharpe’s back.

Lawford had grown up, certainly, over the years, but he hadn’t grown hard, as Sharpe had. He’d seemed to grow a shell to protect himself, a cover that was as brittle as an egg-shell, and one that nobody else even realised was there. Had Lawford been scarred on the inside the way Sharpe was on the outside? Sharpe would never know what had happened between the last time he’d seen Lawford, in India, and the first time they met again, here in Spain, and he knew Lawford would never talk of it.

But even to think that something had hurt Lawford made him feel more protective. He just had to learn how to protect him, in a way that Lawford would accept. But that would come later. Now though, it was late, and they had things to do in the morning.

“Come on, Bill,” he said, rolling onto his side. “You can stop all that tickling and come to bed.”

Lawford made no protest, but his hand stopped tracing the scars and came to rest across Sharpe, holding him in a protective embrace. He closed his eyes and Sharpe reached up and idly wound a strand of Lawford’s hair around his finger.

“Good night, Private Lawford,” he said.

Lawford opened one eye. “Good night, Dick,” he said.

Sharpe watched him for a moment. For tonight, Lawford wasn’t his colonel, he was Sharpe’s equal.


End file.
